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Dr. McLaughlin is professor emeritus of pharmacognosy in Purdue University School of Pharmacy and Pharmacal Science, but says he was glad to leave Purdue to become a part of Nature's Sunshine Products' science team in part because because at NSP's Science Department he would have access to scientific equipment that was not available to him at Purdue. He has been studying compounds in the bark of the pawpaw tree for more than 25 years. |
Jerry McLaughlin, Ph.D., is the former (now
retired) Vice President of R&D/QA and Chief Scientific Officer for Nature's
Sunshine. He earned his bachelor"s, master"s, and doctoral degrees from the
University of Michigan. During 34 years of professorial service, his research
group produced over 330 scientific papers, 34 masters and doctoral graduates, 50
visiting scientists and post-doctoral associates, eight patents, and over
$5,000,000 in research grants and contracts.Jerry McLaughlin, professor of pharmacognosy, and former doctoral student Nicholas Oberlies have found compounds in the bark of the tree that have shown preliminary success in fighting some drug-resistant cancers.
The pawpaw compounds not only are effective in killing tumors that have proven resistant to anticancer agents but also seem to have a special affinity for such resistant cells.
"Multidrug-resistant cancer is hard to treat because the cancer cell has developed a mechanism to get around the anticancer agent," McLaughlin says.
"Tumor cells that survive chemotherapy treatments often recover with increased resistance to the agent used in the original treatment program as well as to other related drugs."
The effect of the pawpaw compounds on drug-resistant cells has been studied only in laboratory cultures and will require additional study in animals before it can be tested in humans. [Since this article was written, paw paw was demonstrated significantly effective against several different types of "cellular abnormalities" in a clinical study involving over 100 subjects with varying stages of tumor development.]
Oberlies earned his Ph.D. in 1997.
A patent on the use of the compounds in treating drug-resistant cells is pending.
Stories by Susan Gaidos and Kate Walker,
Purdue News Service, and Steve Tally, PNS and Agricultural Communication
Service
Source:
www.purdue.edu/PER/S98Perspective.research.html
What About Graviola?
Dr. Jerry McLaughlin, who has performed more research on the benefits of paw paw (Asimina triloba) than anyone else in the world, was directly responsible for over 25 years of studies at Purdue University into the anti-tumor properties of a group of plant chemicals that are know as annonaceous acetogenins, found in paw paw and a few related species, that interfere with the cellular production of energy. Dr. McLaughlin and his team of researchers considered Graviola (Annona muricata, also known as Guanabana, Brazilian Cherimoya, or Brazilian paw paw) as an alternative to paw paw as a source for these annonaceous acetogenins. They rejected Graviola as a viable alternative because it contains much weaker compounds (on the order of hundreds of times weaker) than paw paw, and is much more difficult to standardize. In spite of Dr. McLaughlin"s published findings, many of the manufacturers of Graviola products suggest taking their Graviola in conjunction with the very supplements--Coenzyme Q-10, vitamin C, other antioxidants, and other supplements intended to increase the production of cellular energy (click here for contraindications)--that Dr. McLaughlin discovered inhibit the therapeutic action of Asimina triloba. (Source: Several personal discussions with Dr. McLaughlin in 2003.)
